If I Die, Before You Do
by xiiao
Summary: Syaoran and Meiling are working on a project when two kids with guns start shooting people.. Meiling is one of the kids shot. Will Syaoran's efforts to save her help? [ slight MeiLi. r+r ]


Of I Die, Before You Do.  
By: Xiao-chan  
  
Author's Note:  
  
I've been watching too much America's Most Wanted. Forgive me.. Again a MeiLi, and I got the idea from the Columbine shooting, also from when I was in 4th grade and a boy brought a gun to school, and he was planning on shooting me and a bunch of other kids, and a story I read in my book.  
  
Told from Syaoran's point of view. (With a slightly different personality.)  
  
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"I'm going to get another book, all right?" I asked Meiling, as I stood from my seat in the library. She nodded and continued to flip through her own book. I made my way across the faded blue carpet, and down a hall of books, running my finger across each one, looking for a certain title. I had placed my hand on that book and pulled it from its slot on the shelf and made my way back to my seat, across from Meiling.  
  
"Welcome back," she responded to my sitting in my seat and grinned happily. She was obviously excited about being paired up with me for this project. I knew why, too, it was because she was my best friend and she loved me, but she never got paired with me for this type of thing. Usually I had been paired with Kinomoto, Sakura, while she had been left with some unknown student.  
  
We had been engaged to get married on her eighteenth birthday and we had made a promise that she would be my bride till I found someone I loved more then her. I was going to stick with Meiling. I had never admitted that I loved her like she loved me, it would be kind of weird for me to actually say I loved her that way, because I wasn't like that.  
  
I didn't respond to her welcome, and just scooted my chair closer to the wooden table, opening the book and grabbing my pencil. I read silently some of the words and occasionally jotted down some notes that we would need for later use.  
  
"Hey, Syaoran, you don't have to be so quiet. Anyway, we're suposed to be working together."  
  
"You're supposed to be quiet in a library, Meiling," I snapped. She stared at me, almost a pleading look. It was almost like she was saying "I hate it when you're so cold to me," with her eyes. I groaned lightly.  
  
"Meiling, don't do that!" I was a bit louder then I had intended to be, and was then scolded by the librarian. I glared at her for a moment and then looked back down to my book, continuing to read.  
  
That was exactly how I acted toward her, cold and distant. I know it was a little different, but then again, who needed to know that secretly I loved Meiling Li? I'd like to keep that secret, thank you very much.  
  
We didn't bother talking to each other for the rest of the class period, and just continued to work silently.  
  
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Bang! Bang! I could hear screams from the hallway and quickly stood in time with Meiling. She stared at me and blinked, a worried expression on her face. There was more banging and screaming, and then the sound of kids yelling at other ones. Teachers were screaming in terror, as well.  
  
I quickly reached for Meiling's wrist and jerked it hard. She looked at me, scared. I mouthed to her to run and she did as told. Right when we began to move our feet fast, we both heard the doors to the library slam open and more loud shots. Gun shots. They seemed to be randomly firing the bullets at random people. Meiling jerked her hand from mine and covered her ears, running along side of me.  
  
We had made it pasted a few tables before the sound of Meiling's scream filled my ears. I noticed she wasn't beside me and I turned just in time to watch her collapse onto the carpet. Thoughts of panic filled my mind about what happened, till finally reality struck me with what felt like a metal baseball bat. Meiling, shot.  
  
"Meiling!" I ran to her, collpasing onto my knees, and letting my eyes scan her body for the wound that the bullet had made. I found her hands, which had been held over the upper right part of her chest. She was gasping and moaning as I pulled them away to find her hands soaked in her own blood, and her uniform soaking in the same liquid as well.  
  
I was grateful that we had been so close to a table, since I could move her beneath it to have a somewhat hiding space from the shooters. Once we had made it underneath the darkened space, I removed found a sweater sitting near the floor, and snatched it. I didn't care who it belonged to, since this was a matter of life and death. I moved Meiling's hands again from her wound and used the sweater to push against it.  
  
"SYAORAN!" She screeched. I watched tears begin to fill her eyes with the pain, but I knew this might actually stop the bleeding, so continued. She closed her eyes and held them that way tightly, a few single droplets of tears sliding down her cheeks. She started gasping again, and moaning from the pain. I could of sworn my heart broke in to two that very instant.  
  
"Meiling," I needed to tell her it would be all right, but for a long moment I seemed to question that. I wanted her to be all right, but that might not happen. I shook my head to get rid of that thought. "It's going to be all right. Hang in there, Mei," that had been the first time I had said a full sentence to her since she was shot.  
  
Her eyes opened and locked with mine. Ruby met amber, and I saw the fear in her own eyes, and I knew she saw the same in mine. I weakened the pressure on her chest for a moment, fearing that the pressure might kill her.  
  
"Syaoran," her voice was soft and I didn't want it to be like that, I wanted it to be the cheerful, hyper, Syaoran-Is-Mine type of voice, but it wasn't. The next thing she said made me want to scream at her, tell her nothing was going to happen. I couldn't. "If I die.. before you do," she whimpered.  
  
"Meiling! Don't say that!" I snapped back at her, my voice filled with something unlike the usual. I was choking back tears myself, and my voice seemed to be trembling. But no matter what I said, she continued with that little poem.  
  
"I'll go to heaven, and wait for you--"  
  
"MEILING! You're going to be okay!" I hated to hear that from her, it sounded like she was loosing all hope that was left inside of her. She closed her eyes tightly again, and I pushed pressure back on her chest, she screamed my name again. At this, I could feel tears begin to fall down my cheeks. I used one hand to wipe them away.  
  
I weakened the pressure again, knowing I couldn't take the sound of Meiling screeching, whimpering and screaming in pain from it.  
  
Finally the gun shots faded and I could hear the two people whispering lightly, and I watched their feet walk slowly across the carpet, and shoot randomly under a table. I closed my eyes tightly in hopes that they wouldn't shoot Meiling again or me.  
  
I didn't see them walk by the table where Meiling and I were but I heard the sound of a bullet fly under here. I screamed, knowing they didn't shoot under the same table, and pulled my body over Meiling's as fast as I could. She whimpered loudly.  
  
I opened an eye and realized that the bullet nearly missed, and hit the carpet only a few feet from myself. I sighed with relief and moved myself back to the position I had been at. Meiling opened her eyes, and stared at me, then take a glance to the side of her, to see the two pairs of feet.  
  
There was then the sound of a evil laughter, and then the two bangs, and falling of two people. I waited for the sound of footsteps to fill the library, but there was none. Taking a glance from beneath the table I saw no one else walking, and thn I saw two bodies near us, guns near them. They shot themselves?  
  
That didn't matter to me, and I turned back to Meiling who was breathing quickly in short gasps and I removed the sweater from her wound, and that same instant Meiling moved her hands back to it. I moved them away and held them in mine.  
  
"Meiling, look at me," she looked at me. "I need.. to tell you something."  
  
"..I," she gasped. "Syaoran, if I die before you do, I'll go to heaven and wait for you," she whispered it to me softly, and then whimpered. "I'll give the angels back their wings, and risk the loss of everything--"  
  
"Meiling, wait.."  
  
"Syaoran.."  
  
"I.. I.. I love you."  
  
"I'll go to heaven and wait for you, Syaoran," she whispered back in reply.  
  
"Please, don't say that, Meiling.."  
  
"Syaoran.. I love you.. too," I let her hands go and brought that sweater to her chest, and pressed it. I was scared now, for her life. I didn't want to let her die. I slowly moved her till she was partially in my grasp, her back against my arms, so I was holding her.  
  
Her breathing was becoming shallow, and again I wanted to scream at her. I held her close, and held one of her hand in mine, which was still blood covered.  
  
"Don't do this," I said, trembling, scared still. "Meiling, please--"  
  
"I'm sorry.."  
  
"Please.."  
  
"Syaoran.. I love you," her voice trailed to nothing, and I couldn't hear her gasps for breath anymore, I paniced and felt her wrist for a pulse, but there was none. I stared at her, eyes scanning over her whole body. I was softly crying. This was exactly what I didn't want to happen, not now, not today, I never wanted this to happen, and I didn't want it to happen like this.  
  
That was the day Meiling died. She died while I held her. And when she died, a part of me died, too, the part of me that wouldn't admit that I loved her. I held her closer.  
  
"If you die, before I do, I'll go to heaven and wait for you," I repeated those words over and over atleast twenty times. She was.. gone, and wasn't going to come back.  
  
...  
  
Meiling died that day.. She was gone forever now, and I swore that no one would replace her. No one could replace her anyway, not one person in the world would come close to replacing Meiling Li.. and I also swore I would never love anyone more then Meiling..  
  
My Meiling Li; and I love her.  
  
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After Note:  
  
Hmmm.. A little sad, I know, and I couldn't think of a better ending. I kept wanting to repeat "Meiling died that day," but I didn't. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it was sad, too. And please review like the kind reader you are. 


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